The Stand

Waking up before dawn, Abagail tries to pray but feels that her pride is preventing her from seeing something the Lord wants her to know. Flagg intrudes into her prayers and threatens her. Abagail believes she must cleanse her soul in order to hear God’s voice clearly, so she walks off into the countryside around Boulder, leaving a note that reads, “I must be gone a bit now. I’ve sinned and presumed to know the Mind of God. My sin has been PRIDE, and He wants me to find my place in His work again. I will be with you again soon if it is God’s will” (828).

The residents feel disheartened by the loss of their prophet, but they believe she will return. Stu, Harold, and Ralph form a search party to find her. While they’re gone, Frannie takes the opportunity to search Harold’s house for anything suggesting he might have bad intentions toward the Boulder colony. While there, she hears someone knocking on the front door. It’s Nadine. Realizing Harold and Nadine might have a connection shocks Frannie. Fearful of Nadine seeing her, Frannie leaves.

That afternoon, Harold suggests that he, Stu, and Ralph get on their motorbikes and comb the west side of Boulder, communicating via walkie-talkie. Harold has a secret plan. If he finds Abagail, he intends to shoot her and then kill Stu and Frannie before fleeing westward. By dusk, Harold still hasn’t located Abagail. He meets up with Stu at their rendezvous point, intending to shoot him. At that moment, Glen, Ralph, and Nick arrive, so the opportunity fades. Harold returns home and writes in his journal. Later that evening, he discovers a sandy footprint in his basement. Not realizing Frannie has been in his house, he assumes a thief crept in and resolves to hide his ledger journal somewhere safer.

The next day the search party expands to include a dozen people, who have no luck in finding Abagail. That evening they convene at Stu and Frannie’s house to discuss their dilemma and how they might fight the dark man without Abagail. Glen says, “I no longer think that sociology or psychology or any other ology will put an end to him. I think only white magic will do that … and our white magician is out there someplace, wandering and alone” (853).

The following afternoon, Glen bursts in with happy news for Stu and Frannie. Kojak, the dog they left behind in New Hampshire, has caught up with them. He’s badly injured and appears to have tangled with a wolf, but he’s patched up. Glen feels remorseful that they weren’t able to bring the dog with them on their motorbikes but is happy to have him back.

As Kojak rests and recuperates, he recalls his journey to find Glen. He stopped at Abagail’s home, where a wolf pack attacked him. He killed or injured all of them and rested inside the house for a while before continuing his trek. As he drifts more deeply into sleep, he thinks, “And at last he was here, THE MAN was here. There were no wolves here. Food was here. There was no sense of that dark Thing … the Man with the stink of a wolf […] For now, things were fine” (861-62).

On August 18, the Boulder community of 600 people gathers together for the first time to elect a permanent governing board. The community accepts as its charter the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution. Harold makes a motion that the seven temporary ad hoc committee members should reside as Boulder’s permanent governing board, and everyone agrees. The group also votes to give veto power over the board to Abagail, to appoint a Power committee to get electrical power flowing, and to designate a Burial committee to take care of the plague corpses still strewn around town. The final item on the agenda is to organize a committee to find Abagail, and they place Harold in charge of it. The community considers the meeting a huge success by the time everyone disperses for the night.

Walking back home, Larry and Lucy find Nadine standing on their front porch. She wants to speak to Larry alone. Lucy feels jealous and assumes Larry will reject her now that Nadine is beckoning him. He leaves with Nadine, promising to return shortly. The couple goes for a walk, during which Nadine throws her arms around Larry and insists that he have sex with her. She declares that she wants to stay in Boulder and, if she’s no longer a virgin, she will be able to do that. Not understanding Nadine’s connection to Flagg, Larry spurns her. He goes home and tells Lucy that he loves her.

Now alone, Nadine goes back to her house to recover a Ouija board planchette that she recently acquired. She then drives her Vespa to the summit of Flagstaff Mountain:

It was as if these mountains, of which she was even now only in the foothills, were a no-man’s-land between two spheres of influence—Flagg in the West, the old woman in the East. And here the magic flew both ways, mixing, making its own concoction that belonged neither to God nor to Satan but which was totally pagan. She felt she was in a haunted place (893).

Nadine recalls a time during her college years when she used a planchette to receive a message from the dark man. He wanted her to be his, and she has avoided Ouija boards since that time. But now, in the mountains, she takes out the planchette and says, “‘Tell me.’ And beneath her fingers, the planchette began to write” (900). 

When the committee holds its next meeting, they’re confronted with a few unforeseen tasks. Nobody knows how many people are in Boulder, how many have left, or how many more are arriving. The group concludes that they need to appoint census takers to get an accurate headcount. In addition, someone needs to maintain law and order over a growing number of petty crimes. The group suggests that Stu become marshal with the authority to deputize additional personnel. After the meeting ends, Frannie confides that she’s concerned about Stu’s new duties. She fears for his safety and worries even more about what will become of her and the baby. Stu reassures her that everything will be alright, but she doesn’t believe him. As she falls asleep that night, “A queer certainty stole over her, as numbing as some creeping anesthesia, that they would finish by wading in blood” (910).

On August 21, Harold and five other men go about the grim business of collecting decomposing corpses and burying them in mass graves outside of town. Harold begins to feel a sense of camaraderie with his co-workers, who treat him with affection and respect. This realization temporarily upsets his plans for vengeance. He briefly entertains the notion of aligning himself with the town’s interests but eventually reasserts his loyalty to the dark man.

When Harold arrives home at the end of the day, he finds Nadine sitting on his front step. She introduces herself and offers to cook supper for them both. Though sexually attracted to her, Harold tries to hide it. After they eat, Nadine seduces him, but they stop short of intercourse. She says she has to save her virginity for the dark man but implies that they can try all sorts of other ways to achieve sexual release.

Nadine also says that the dark man has told her about Harold’s journal and his secret plans to avenge himself on the community in Boulder. They agree to join forces to serve Flagg. “She smiled at him, such a smile of triumph and sensual promise that he shuddered from it, and his own eager response to it. She took his hand. And Harold Lauder succumbed to his destiny” (926).